The Black Arts Era
Highlights
1. The 1960 was a time of social upheaval at home and of costly military engagement abroad.
2. The proud, optimistic sense of global leadership and domestic tranquility that was characterized post-World War II America was shattered during the decade by black civil rights and white youth movements that polarized various populations of the United States.
3. The civil rights and Black power movements of the 1960s dissolved from energetic idealism and communal hopefulness to sullen and at a times dictatorial cynicism.
4. By the end of the decade, however, the African American freedom struggle had encountered bitter frustration and violent setbacks.
5. The seemingly state-sanctioned violent denial of African American citizenship rights focused new attention on the pronouncements, publications and institutional leadership and programs of the Nation of Islam.
6. The Nation’s most charismatic representative was Minister Malcolm X Shabazz of the influential Temple Number 7 in Harlem. Malcolm X’s brilliant and fearless oratory and his deft leadership awakened the working-class masses of African Americans to “Mr. Muhammad’s Message.”
7. Organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which had since their founding propagated integrationist ideals, transformed themselves almost overnight into stridently revolutionary cadres.
8. The white youth movement of the 1960s also witnessed a continuous retreat from idealism and studied reform.
9. During the 1960s, this New Left was responsible for much of the country’s antiwar energy and revolt.
10. African American writers and artists turned to the African American masses for their inspiration and defined their goals in broadly collective social and political terms.
11. The emulations of such mass speech and musical referents, as critic Stephen Henderson has claimed, was a central characteristic of the New Black Poetry produced during the 1960s.
12. Poetry was the creative genre that saw the most accomplished, experimental, and distinguished work by the black artists of the sixties.
13. Hidden or obscured by the more powerful presence of poetry and drama, there were, however, novels and stories that reflect what might be thought of as the “deep structure” of the 1960s.
14. African American poetical forms have provided expressive outlets for a people who often could not afford the time and luxury of the Great American Novel or full-length drama.
15. Among black Americans involved with culture, scholarship and the arts, there was a shared sense of a new black world coming into existence in the United States.
16. Not content merely to emulate existing protocols for art and intellectual creativity, the Black Arts set out both to win and to half-create a black audience for their productions.
17. The Black Arts Movement was productive not only of new publishing ventures, but also of new periodicals, sensing market possibilities in a new Black Art, began to sign African American writers to lucrative contracts.
18. The anti-Semitism of the Black Arts movement is scarcely more devastating or inhumane than the economic, social political and educational conditions from which the Black Arts hoped to rescue the black American minority.
19. In criticism and scholarship, the Black Arts movement gained strength not only from new journals and publishers but also from newly established black studies programs on American university campuses.
20. What spears in the present mapping of the Black Arts are a revised perspective and greater inclusiveness- an era and not a movement – representing and mirroring the incumbencies if history and its literary critical subset of interests.
2. The proud, optimistic sense of global leadership and domestic tranquility that was characterized post-World War II America was shattered during the decade by black civil rights and white youth movements that polarized various populations of the United States.
3. The civil rights and Black power movements of the 1960s dissolved from energetic idealism and communal hopefulness to sullen and at a times dictatorial cynicism.
4. By the end of the decade, however, the African American freedom struggle had encountered bitter frustration and violent setbacks.
5. The seemingly state-sanctioned violent denial of African American citizenship rights focused new attention on the pronouncements, publications and institutional leadership and programs of the Nation of Islam.
6. The Nation’s most charismatic representative was Minister Malcolm X Shabazz of the influential Temple Number 7 in Harlem. Malcolm X’s brilliant and fearless oratory and his deft leadership awakened the working-class masses of African Americans to “Mr. Muhammad’s Message.”
7. Organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which had since their founding propagated integrationist ideals, transformed themselves almost overnight into stridently revolutionary cadres.
8. The white youth movement of the 1960s also witnessed a continuous retreat from idealism and studied reform.
9. During the 1960s, this New Left was responsible for much of the country’s antiwar energy and revolt.
10. African American writers and artists turned to the African American masses for their inspiration and defined their goals in broadly collective social and political terms.
11. The emulations of such mass speech and musical referents, as critic Stephen Henderson has claimed, was a central characteristic of the New Black Poetry produced during the 1960s.
12. Poetry was the creative genre that saw the most accomplished, experimental, and distinguished work by the black artists of the sixties.
13. Hidden or obscured by the more powerful presence of poetry and drama, there were, however, novels and stories that reflect what might be thought of as the “deep structure” of the 1960s.
14. African American poetical forms have provided expressive outlets for a people who often could not afford the time and luxury of the Great American Novel or full-length drama.
15. Among black Americans involved with culture, scholarship and the arts, there was a shared sense of a new black world coming into existence in the United States.
16. Not content merely to emulate existing protocols for art and intellectual creativity, the Black Arts set out both to win and to half-create a black audience for their productions.
17. The Black Arts Movement was productive not only of new publishing ventures, but also of new periodicals, sensing market possibilities in a new Black Art, began to sign African American writers to lucrative contracts.
18. The anti-Semitism of the Black Arts movement is scarcely more devastating or inhumane than the economic, social political and educational conditions from which the Black Arts hoped to rescue the black American minority.
19. In criticism and scholarship, the Black Arts movement gained strength not only from new journals and publishers but also from newly established black studies programs on American university campuses.
20. What spears in the present mapping of the Black Arts are a revised perspective and greater inclusiveness- an era and not a movement – representing and mirroring the incumbencies if history and its literary critical subset of interests.
Literature I Would Like to Read
- A Poem for Black Hearts by Amiri Baraka
- I am a Black Woman by Mari Evans